ay. It doesn't seem to me
that Christianity can do much for a man when javelins are in the air.
And besides, to be frank with you, Sextus, I rather hope to make a
little something for myself. God though he is said to be, I would like
to see Commodus killed for I loathe him. But I hope to survive him and
obtain my freedom. Pertinax would manumit me. That is why I applied
for the post of trainer in this beastly ergastulum. It is bad enough to
have to endure the gloom of men virtually condemned to death and looking
for a chance to kill themselves, but it is better than treading the sand
to have one's liver split, one's throat cut, and be dragged out with the
hooks. I have fought many a fight, but I liked each one less than the
last."

He got up and strode again along the corridor, glancing into the cells,
where gladiators sat fettered to the wall.

"This whole business is getting too confused for me," he grumbled,
sitting down again. "You want to kill Commodus, as is reasonable.
Marcia has ordered me to kill you, which is unreasonable! Yet for the
present she protects you. Why? She knows you are Commodus' enemy. She
seems anxious to save Commodus. Yet she encourages Pertinax, who
doesn't want to be emperor; he only dallies with the thought because
Marcia helps Cornificia to persuade him! Isn't that a confusion for
you? And now there's Bultius Livius. As I understand it, Marcia caught
him spying on her. No woman in her senses would trust Livius; the man
has snowbroth in his veins and slow fire in his head. Yet Marcia now
heaps favors on him!"

"That is my doing," said Sextus.

"Are you mad then, too?"

"Maybe! I have persuaded Marcia that, now she has possession of the
journal Livius was keeping, she can henceforth hold that over him and
use him to advantage. She can win his gratitude--"

"He has none!"

"--and at the same time hold over him the threat of exposure for
connection with the Severus faction, and the Pescennius faction, and the
Clodius Albinus faction. He had it all down in his journal. He can
easily be involved in those conspiracies if Marcia isn't satisfied with
his spying in her behalf."

"Gemini! The man will break down under the strain. He has no stamina.
He will denounce us all."

"Let us hope so," Sextus answered. "I am counting on it. Nothing but
sudden danger will ever bring Pertinax up to the mark! I gave a bond to
Marcia for Livius' life."

"Jupiter! What kind o